Presented by the American Cinematheque, the French Institute, the French Embassy in New York, the French Film & TV Office of the French Consulate and the Jean-Pierre Melville Foundation. Special thanks to TV5MONDE, now streaming the best of French-language films online with Sling TV.

35 mm!

LE SAMOURAÏ

1967,
Janus Films,
101 min,
France/Italy,
Dir: Jean-Pierre Melville

Director Jean-Pierre Melville’s best-known film stars Alain Delon as uber-cool assassin Jeff Costello, roaming the nasty streets of Paris looking for the slugs who betrayed him. PULP FICTION, HEAT, THE KILLER - this is where neo-noir truly begins, in the film’s steely, artificial blues and grays, in the alien beauty of Delon’s hitman. “A prose poem of silences and gestures interrupted by the occasional crack of a gun and a whispery sigh.” - Manohla Dargis, L.A. Weekly.